Anyone going to the launch later today?? I'm not sure where I'll be for it. Either Daytona or on top of a parking garage in orlando. I don't feel like fighting the 6 hour traffic to get out of Jetty park lol.

One of my good friends is on the Structural team for Endeavor, she's pretty excited about the launch, first one they've had since she's been working for USA. I really hope it goes well!!

I've just had a read through the fact sheet on NASA's space shuttle section for mission sts-118 and I found it interesting that except for 1 crew member being 37 (Tracy Cadwell) all the others are in the mid 40s to mid 50s.

Nothing wrong with that (I'm 43 myself) but then you notice that for 3 of the astronauts it is their first flight and the others have only flown once. This shows the very low flight rates that NASA has been doing. I'm not sure I would have the patience to wait years and years for a ride (nearly 20 in the case of Barbara Morgan).

I think I read a while back that there was something like 400 different people in total that had flown in space, I wonder how fast that number changes and whether agencies tend to use a lot of the same people or as it seems with this flight they use as many different people as they can. It would be interesting to see some figures for the last 10 years or so of flight experience for astronauts.

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

I've had a chance to compare the figures to see what the trend was and they appear to be indicating a couple of things, I hasten to add that I am not a statistician and it is probably a bit crude to draw conclusions from a single set of figures. Here goes anyway .

over the period the number of people flying overall is dropping off (even before columbia), this may change if shuttle flight rates can be increased.

the ratio of new astronauts to vets has been about 30-50% (this increased slightly when the shuttle wasn't flying and china started lauching people). The last 2 years have seen a large increase in new astronauts:- 86%(2006) and 112%(2007 so far).

not sure whether this indicates a lot of astronauts leaving or retiring from space agencies over the last couple of years or possibly vets moving into other roles.

The large majority of vets in recent years only have 1 or 2 previous flights whereas it was not uncommon for vets to have already flown 3 or 4 times in the late 90s.

If there are fewer vets working with agency astronauts this may have an impact on efficiency and how they perform on orbit, I must admit I've seen nothing to indicate this yet but this may happen in time.

With fewer flights available more astronauts may leave, especially once the shuttle retires if opportunities are available in the private sector. If ISS resupply goes comercial then astronauts might well think that the privateers offer better options.

Anyone got any thought?

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The US started long duration flights in the mid 1990s onboard Mir. As US astronauts are drawn from active service after they accumulated a certain radiation dose that can explain a few retirements. Earlier they could take much more short duration Shuttle flights than it's possible with long duration space station flights.

The other point I could imagine: As NASA knows that they are practically out of business beginning in 2010 for several years perhaps until 2015 or 2016 (except paid Soyuz flights for their "guest" station crew), NASA perhaps tries to give as many astronauts as possible some flight experience (and more than just being "cargo" in Soyuz from an operational view), so that they have at least some astronauts then in 2015/16 with flight experience when they perhaps resume own spaceflights.

I think NASA can't calculate with private flights in the US, at least not yet, so they have to somewhat secure their operations in the future.

_________________"The hardest hurdle to space isn't the technicalities and money. But rather, the courage and the will to do it." - Burt Rutan.